Saturday, October 24, 2015

80-20's many old war-horses have retired now that SELF has succeeded. They are Larry Ho, Chenming Hu and Charles Zhang who will retire on 1/1/2016. All of them had requested to retire a long time ago. I begged them to stay on until SELF has either succeeded or failed. They all stayed and fought on valiantly, out of a sense of duty to our community and to 80-20 Initiative.

I know how much sweat and tears, not to mention time and money, they have shed selflessly for the betterment of the AsAm community.

The following is a letter I sent to Prof. Larry Ho, who has two endowed chairs at Harvard, accepting his resignation.

"Dear Larry:

I hereby most reluctantly accept your resignation.

You are one of the 6 founders of 80-20 Initiative. You sat on the Boards of 80-20 Initiative, 80-20 PAC, 80-20 EF, and the Board of Donors. You have selflessly given of yourself, time, and money. Your modesty, wisdom, judicious assessment and generosity have benefited 80-20 immensely, and set examples for those of us who know you well . . .

Your glittering academic career has been described in so many different places that it doesn't do you honor for me to repeat it here. You are one of the wisest, most selfless person I know who also play the role of an activist, striving for the benefits of the AsAm community. I shall miss you whenever the next really tough problem confronts me.

You truly fit the words of Douglas MacCarthur, "Old soldier never die. They only fade away.

" However, you'll never fade from my memory.

I am honored to know and have worked with you. Hello to Sophia.

Best regards,

SB"

A similar heartfelt acceptance letter was sent to Prof. Chenming Hu who was Distinguished Chair professor of electrical engineering at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, and is known as the "father of 3-D transistors, already being manufactured by Intel. Larry & Sophia are Family Life Members. Chenming & Margaret, and Charles & Lynn, are Honorary Family Life Members. They all will continue to support 80-20 greatly and advise and guide me when things get really tough.

An anonymous donor increased her pledge from $3,000/yr to $10,000/yr for 5 yrs, pushing the total donation to $913,000/yr. Does this story strike a resonant chord in your heart? Help to make SELF even stronger.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

for the 17 million Asian Americans who can now look to a professional political organization to give advice, consul, and perhaps take action to protect them. Politically, that is a huge legacy to our children;

for the entire Asian American community, because it had shown that it is willing to invest in its own future through a grassroots movement. Culturally, that is a HISTORIC beginning;

for our nation, because when the 17 million AsAms gradually get to enjoy equal opportunity, America becomes "A MORE PERFECT UNION."

Henry's brother George Washington Lee, a Verizon and ATT communication executive and served in the US Army artillery unit, passed away recently. Henry decided to increase his brother's donation to SELF from $2,000/yr to $7,000/yr for 5 years, in memory of Geroge. That did it. We thank

Henry, who is an EF Board Member.

2. An announcement from 80-20 PAC soon

80-20 PAC Board Members and Advisors are meeting to decide if it should come back to its full operation, given the exceedingly positive statement of our community for wanting to keep 80-20 PAC alive.

3. A professional audit of SELF planned

A professional firm will be hired to audit the SELF account. Its results will be reported to you.

80-20 Initiative is an organization with two components (a) 80-20 Educational Foundation (EF) and (b) 80-20 Political Action Committee (PAC). The two are independent orgs, although they share the same purpose and the usage of staff. Each org. pays for the staff time it uses.

80-20 EF is a 501 c-3 organization. It owns SELF and is the parent organization for the Board of Donors (BOD). Contributions to EF is tax deductible.

80-20 PAC is registered with the Federal Election Commission. It rewards politicians who share AsAms' rightful concerns and punishes those who don't.

5. How will the SELF (S

elf Empowerment Long-term Fund) money be used?

Of the anticipated $4.5 million or more that will come the next 5 years, $1.8 million is already on hand. Not a penny has been touched, except for bank fees.

$0.5 million will be used each year to run EF.

$100,000 will be granted to BOD to forge unity within the AsAm community.

Yesterday, Alex New, NYC sent in a $30,000 check to increase his donation from $20k/yr to $30k/yr retroactively. Henry Lee, NYC committed his $10,000, increasing his donation from $5000/yr to $7000/yr.

That brought us to $895,000/yr for 5 yrs, only $5k/yr short of SELF's goal.

The clock is STILL ticking.

SELF STILL has not reached $900,000/yr.

Many of us STILL may not have done our share.

DONATE to help us reach $900,000/yr for 5 years & give our children a great political legacy.

Monday, October 19, 2015

From someone who is an insider of a leading Republican presidential candidate's campaign: "I agree that 80-20 has been misunderstood as an organization leaning towards one party DEM. One of the main reasons is that Republicans did not respond to the survey, which was a mistake. I think Republicans got the message in year 2012 when a majority of Asians voted for DEM. I hope I will have an opportunity to meet with you again . . . . ."

"In the 2016 election cycle, 80-20 will likely get replies from both parties." - SB :-)

The Clock Is Ticking

Do your share!

SELF still needs $8k/yr to reach 900,000/yr. It is at $880k/yr plus $12k/yr promised.

In the HISTORY OF AMERICA, there has never been an AsAm political organization, with a strong financial base of about $4.5 million, that has raised 100% from the community itself.

THEREFORE, 80-20 will last decades & FIGHT for the rightful interests of AsAms, unlike others which are mostly funded by organizationsoutside of our community.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Apparently, it is at $878,000/yr. Recall, however, 2 MAGNIFICENT AsAms had promised to donate additional $12k/yr, if needed, to reach $900,000/yr for 5 years. In fact, therefore, we have already raised $890k/yr.

Is there an implied sense of foreignness in how Trump treated this student?

Q: Want to help educate Trump and other presidential candidates from making such mistakes?

A: Please pass this article to the AsAm college students you know.

Why?

Students are much more likely to attend presidential election rallies. Ask them to spot the campaign staffs in such rallies, and walk up to ask the staffs to tell their bosses that most Asians in such rallies are good ole Americans, and warn their bosses not to make the same mistake that Trump did. When politicians are campaigning, they are very eager to listen in order to avoid making news-making mistakes.

If enough AsAm students will do that during this election season, it'll help educate America's top politicians not to treat AsAms as "perpetual foreigners". After SELF succeeds, 80-20 will hire more staff to do a lot more to erase such stereotypic negative images against us. But right now, publishing this event is all we can do. Note: One has to know the American political system to influence it. 80-20 knows the system.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Public-minded, good-hearted and possibly foolhardy people like the old war horses on 80-20's Boards exist; they give their time, money and skills to give you & your children political clout. Won't you please do YOUR share?

Don't sit back and say, "Hmmm, looks like 80-20 will live now. So I don't need to give my $100/yr or $1,000/yr for 5 yrs to induce 80-20 to live anymore. Let others sacrifice, while I enjoy the fruit of their labor." I trust that YOU don't think that way.

No one knows why you have not donated yet. YOU KNOW! Stand tall. Don't be small.

Donate here. SELF is already at $870,000/yr. It is actually at $882,000/yr, since two MAGNIFICENT individuals, Alex New and Henry Lee of NYC, promised $12,000/yr to help SELF reach its goal. We are only $18k/yr shortof $900k/yr*. All warm-blooded: please help.

*$900,000/yr is equivalent to $1,000,000/yr, since the normal OVERHEAD for raising that kind of money is 10% to 50%. 80-20's OVERHEAD is $1.2% for fees paid to Paypal. We want to thank Kenneth Fong, Palo Alto, CA for increasing his donation from $2k/yr to $4k/yr.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Two MAGNIFICENT supporters have enriched SELF by another $12k/yr. Both are from NY City. One is Alex New, a $20k/yr donor, who promised to kick in another $10k/yr, if it's needed, to reach $900k/yr. Another is Henry Lee, 80-20 Board member and $5k/yr donor, who promised that he'd give another $2k/yr to help reach SELF's goal. SELF is at $865k/yr today. With the PROMISED $12k/yr, it is actually at $877k/yr.

Only 15 days left, and only $23k/yr to go. If YOU come up with the next $10k/yr by this Friday, I'll increase my donation from $8k/yr to $9k/yr. After that SELF will actually be only $12k/yr short, with another 7 days to go. Come on! SELF is the GREATEST POLITICAL LEGACY that we AsAms have given to our children so far.

With only a few days left, our petition has only 17,200 signers. It'll likely fail. That is most unfortunate. We are losing a wonderful chance to protect ourselves politically.

Let's remedy the bad situation

80-20 shall resubmit a similar petition, after much better preparation! The value of having a good permanent political organization is that it can learn from its mistakes and steadily advance your interests.

Our mistakes include insufficient outreach to 1) other AsAm organizations; 2) popular websites; 3) ethnic papers; and 4) social media.

In 2008, 80-20 failed at first to induce Senators Obama and Clinton to answer its questionnaire with 6 yeses. 80-20 also failed to get Bob Beckel fired by Fox. But we persisted and succeeded. :-)

After SELF reaches $900k/yr, we'll hunker down to do all the hard work and resubmit the PETITION, and win

a promise from Pres. Obama that his advocacy to aggressively investigate and prosecute espionage will NOT permit profiling by race and/or national origin. It is another necessary legacy we need to bequeath to our children.